Alphabet and pronounciation
The Dawothi writing is based on the Latin alphabet, with additional letters, for a total of 40 symbols. Alphabet a: a (stressed), ə (unstressed) ã: ɑ̃ ä: æ æ: æ b: b c: t͡s ç: ç (before e, its variations, and i), x (otherwise) č: t͡ʃ d: d ð: ð e: e (stressed), ə (unstressed) ẽ: ẽ ë: ə (always stressed) f: f g: g h: h i: i j: ʒj k: k l: l m: m n: n ŋ: ŋ o: o õ: õ ö: ø p: p r: R (before a vowel), ə (before a consonant), mute (otherwise) s: s š: ʃ ﬆ: st t: t u: u ü: y v: v w: w x: ks y: j z: z ž: ʒ Along with these letters, four digraphs are used: dz: d͡z dž: d͡ʒ eu: jø (after c, d, l, n, s, ﬆ, t, z), ø (after another consonant), jø (otherwise) ou: ʊ th: θ To separate two letters forming a digraph, an apostrophe (') is used. Words are read according to their spelling. However, the following considerations have to be made: - the schwa sound ə is represented with ë when stressed and with either a or e (in a few words with r) when unstressed. However, there's no way to know which one should be written; - the æ sound is represented with ä at the end of a word and with æ otherwise; - the consonants c, d, l, n, s, ﬆ, t, z, when followed by the vowel i, get palatized (soft). If a single i is in turned followed by another vowel, it's skipped in the pronounciation; - semiconsonants w and y are never followed by a consonant or used at the end of a word, and neither is j; - a, e and o can be nasal vowels and as such, they are written with a tilde on them (ã, ẽ, õ). However, this only occurs at the end of a word or before a consonant. Before a vowel, they are pronounced together with a nasal n sound, which is represented with the letter ŋ; - b, d, dz, dž, ð, g, z and ž are pronounced like p, t, c, č, th, k, s and š at the end of a word, unless they are followed by a vowel. A vowel is only long if it belong to the stressed syllable and this syllable is open (i. e. ends with a vowel). Otherwise it's short. Stress Before learning the rules to stress a word, it's good to know that words, in Dawothi, are classified as pure when they have no affix (example: zipuzo "bald") and flected when they have one of more affixes (example: zipuzolo "without the bald one"). All the pure words have no more than three syllables, except for those imported or adapted from other languages (mostly, proper names or scientific terms). Now, the rules for stressing which apply to pure words are: - if a pure word ends in a consonant, the stress falls on the last syllable; - if it ends in a vowel, the stress falls on the previous syllable. In a flected word, the stress stays where it was in its corresponding pure word. So, the examples above are pronounced respectively as zʲi'pu:zo and zʲi'pu:zolo.